The woman in a red trench coat
by mentarisenja
Summary: And until this day, years later, His heart still sinks when he sees a woman in a red trench coat.


Disclaimer: I don't own Draco or Hermione, I don't even own the plot and wording. It belongs to Isabel Coixet's "La femme au trench rouge" from **Paris** **Je T'aime. **I only did some alterations so the story fits HP universe.

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He looked at his wife who crossed the street. She was wearing a red trench coat which she promised to throw away and which she kept pulling out of her closet, year after year.

She approached all things the same way and it was that trait that attracted him, when he first met her.

The same robes worn over and over again, piles of weird red liquid stick called lipstick which she never used or that song…le tourbillion de la vie, life's vortex, which she intonated while making food. All of it, those parts of life that had become alien to him.

And which he intended to abandon between the main dish and dessert

He watched her coming inside the restaurant

"Hello ma'am" greets the waitress

"Hallo" she answers sweetly with a smile. A smile that used to wake the birds (he refuse to use "butterflies") in his stomach.

He realized the weird and logical inappropriateness of the place he had chosen to abandon her. It was here that he first realized that he had stopped loving her. In a restaurant where they had their first date.

Oh the irony.

When she smiled to him, he was on the verge of shouting: "_I'm leaving you!!! Stop smiling!!!"_

But instead he offered her some wine. It pissed him off that she never ordered any hors d'oeuvres or dessert, but she almost always ate his whole portion. The worst thing was that he always ended up ordering what she loved. Looking at her apple pie, he thought solemnly _I'm not sure I actually like that cake._

His thought about the cake was interrupted when suddenly she started to cry like she never cried before. He thought that she knows he was leaving her for Astoria Greengrass. A passionate secretary with whom he had an affair for a year and a half.

_She knows_, he thought

_She's known it for some time. I should have expected it._

Still crying, she took out some documents from her handbag and handed them to him. The documents were written in a lifeless medical language. And described some weird named disease in its terminal stage, _Lei chi mee a? Leukimua?...Leukemia. Oh merlin…_

Not so far from present, in a muggle hospital:

"I'm sorry" says Doctor Adam after giving her the result of her last test. Hermione only look on the word leukemia. For how long, only the doctor knows the answer, maybe seconds, but most likely minutes if not hours.

"How long do I have to live?" she asks with a hint of quiver in her voice.

Having read the documents, the meeting's purpose flew out of his mind and a weird metallic voice said to him:

You have to be up to the task!

And he was.

He ordered 3 pieces of apple pie as take out and sent an owl to his mistress.

_Astoria, Forget about me. Draco_

After that very given day, he surrounded her with the care she always desired. He gave the house elves day off. He moved things from one place to another without magic. He accompanied her to museums and bookstores. He went with her to eat fish and chip, even though he hated that greasy food. He read **Hogwarts A History** aloud for her.

And everything, even the most mundane things had a different meaning.

Since he learned he was doing them for her for the last time

When she had enough power, she'd wake up from bed and made some beef stew her husband likes so much. Draco came home from work only to see his wife wasn't in bed. He went looking for her, shouted her name but went silent when he saw her in the kitchen.

Looking at his fragile yet strong wife in his white button up, with her bed head and make up free face making his favorite food. His wife. _His Hermione_. Suddenly he had to put his hand on his chest because his heart beats crazily thinking that he might not have the chance to hear her high-pitched voice or see her crazy morning hair. But the thought of losing her was the one making him almost burst to tears. Doing the second best thing to do, he hugged her from behind, nearly knocked her down if he didn't hold her tight.

Hermione could feel the wetness of his tears on her shoulders. At that moment, not even the wind dares flowing between them, so that his whispers linger in the air forever.

_I love you…don't leave me, Hermione._

Behaving like a man in love

He once again become a man in love

And when she died in his arms

He fell into an emotional coma

From which he never awoke

And until this day

Years later

His heart still sinks

When he sees a woman in a red trench coat

A/n: yeah, I know I said I don't post story, but I just had this urge to try and post a story. Forgive the grammatical error. Anyway, If you haven't watch Paris Je T'aime, maybe you'd like to see Isabel Coixet's piece in it. You could watch it in YouTube. You REALLY have to watch it http://www dot youtube dot com/watch?v= k6wjPi6VzI4 (erase the space and change the dot with . )


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